Tag Archives: storytime

Once upon a time there was a monster named Stanley, and everyone was afraid of him. Whenever he went out shopping, or driving, or out for a walk, everyone screamed and ran. Stanley was so lonely. He tried to do some hobbies that would take his mind off his troubles.

First he took up jogging. It really focused him, but whenever people saw him running down the sidewalk, they completely freaked out. Children stopped playing outside in his neighborhood. Cars swerved towards him on crosswalks. Stanley grew more depressed.

So he decided to try an indoors hobby. He started building a ship in a bottle, up in his apartment. He tried hard to get immersed in the tiny details of the tiny ship with its tiny captain, but Stanley just didn’t care. He wanted some real people to talk to.

On his way to hurl the bottle off a bridge, Stanley passed by a dance studio and enrolled in the ballet class. The teacher didn’t want a monster in her class, but Stanley started to cry. He gave her the unfinished ship as a token of his thanks, and she didn’t really want that, either.

Stanley was, of course, an amazing dancer. When he danced, he was so beautiful no one could tell he was a monster. In a few years, he was dancing professionally. One day, when he was on tour, some monster hunters came to a performance. They stormed the hall with their guns and yelled at the dancers, “We hear one of you is a dancing monster. Which one?” All the dancers knew that the second Stanley stopped his beautiful dancing, the hunters would see he was a monster. And if only he was dancing, the his cover would be blown. So Stanley kept dancing, and all his colleagues came around him in a big circle and kept dancing, too. They danced all night, till their feet were bloody, and their arms were shaking, and they were crying, and they all looked like monsters, but they were still dancing.

Eventually, they realized they were alone. The audience was gone. The hunters were gone. Even the staff had left. The limping, monstrous company danced Stanley home, in the dark.

Once upon a time there was girl named Sally, with long blonde hair. Her hair was so beautiful that a thousand tiny monsters came to live in it. They climbed up her hair, and whispered in her ears, and gnawed on her eyebrows. At night, when she fell asleep, they tangled up next to her and fell asleep, too. But no one could see them but Sally.

Sally went to the doctor, but unfortunately she was already a diagnosed schizophrenic, so the doctor just upped her medication. The monsters were real, though. Life is difficult when magic realism and real realism intersect. Sally decided she had to solve this problem by herself. She was a proactive kind of gal.

She wore a hat, but they pushed it off.

She got that shampoo kit for lice, but they told her it just “cleared their sinuses”.

She shaved her long hair, but they piled up on her bare head, and dug their little claws into her skin.

Sally was desperate. No matter how long it took, or how far she went, she would find a way to get rid of her monsters. She travelled to the deepest jungles, the highest mountains. When witches and wise men were fuck-useless, she consulted with camels and polar bears. When animals didn’t work, she asked rocks and trees. The monsters reminded her to take her medication.

At the age of 112, Sally was nearly finished building her submarine. She had a few questions for the Mariana Trench. The monsters were sharing some opinions on welding. And then she died. When she was buried, the monsters tangled up in her long grey hair and fell asleep.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived on the moon, in a house full of bees. The bees were also stars. Every night, when the sun left the sky, Jane the Moon-Girl would open the door and let all the bees out of her house, and they’d fill up the sky and be stars. When that happened, she’d steal their honey, and sell it to an ogre that lived on the other side of the moon. The ogre was the sun, and he needed to eat the star-bees’ honey to stay strong for his long commute around the Earth. If he didn’t eat that honey, everyone on Earth would die a cold, dark death.

Unfortunately, the star-bees did not appreciate having their honey stolen and eaten by an ogre. Star-bees are actually kind of racist, against ogres at least. Ogres and gnomes, if you really want to know. Jane the Moon-Girl was getting pretty paranoid, sleeping in a house full of bees with a grudge against her. They just watched her, buzzing to each other behind her back like bitches. The Moon was getting dull and dusky, because she was too tired to clean it properly. Even her former best friend, Barbara the Bee, wasn’t speaking to her. Not a tenable situation here.

She decided to talk to the only sympathetic Moon denizen left, the ogre. He offered to take her on a ride around the Earth on his back, so she could have some time away from the bees, just a little distance. Having roommates can be hard, and a short vacation can be helpful.

So Jane the Moon-Girl climbed up on the ogre’s back, and he flew into the air and started his trip around the Earth. Unfortunately, he was the sun. He grew brighter and brighter, and hotter and hotter, and he was the most beautiful thing in the whole universe, but Jane just couldn’t hold on any longer! She let go, and feel into the Pacific Ocean. She fell so fast and hard, she punched a hole right in Hawaii, and made a volcano. The ogre didn’t even notice. The sun is generally well-meaning, but pretty oblivious to details.

Does this story need a moral? Don’t get into cars with strange men, you don’t know where you’ll end up.

OK, fine, there’s a snowstorm and whatever and I’m finally wearing my stupid tights like a normal person. Yes, I’m toasty warm, but at what cost? Nothing but the price of the tights, you may say, but no! There is more! There is also my dignity!

My first quiet-reference-shift update of the year! On account of the aforementioned snowstorm, there is absolutely no one here. I am also looking at a giant orange tarp, because construction has finally migrated its way on down to the worst of all places, a place where I can see it.

Some very awesome grappling today. We learned an absolutely brutal new choke called the North-South choke. I was the dummy at first, so I experienced it, like, six times before I ever saw it. The only parts I knew were what happened to the opponent. I was trying to be helpful to my partners later, but the steps I knew were, “grab her armpit, push off her hip, then terrible pain.” Seriously, it somehow manages to cut off your blood and your air and it is so mean.

Then in rolling, I managed to successfully use a choke I learned today (not the mean one) without any prompting or helpful instructions from anyone. Hoorah! If you want some TMI from rolling, well here’s some of that! I got an awesome new Under Armour sportsbra that zips up in the front (the baddest-assed sportsbra around), which is great for absolutely everything in sporting world except, as it turns out, twisting and turning against an opponent in grappling. Last week after I finished rolling, I realized I had come completely undone. This was near the end of the ladies’ class, too, when the men start coming in for the next class, so I had to rush into the bathroom to, you know, collect myself. So this week I was prepared with an extra, old sportsbra over top of my wonderful new one, to protect the zipper and also act as insurance.

(If sportsbras were a high school Under Armour would beat up Lululemon. I’m not saying that’s morally right, I’m just saying it would happen. Maybe Lululemon was texting mean things, and so much prettier, jealousies arose. … This dumbass scenario is going to be in my head for days. If you see me looking aloof and thoughtful, know that I am not thinking of philosophers or great books, no, I am detailing the petty dramas that would lead to an imaginary smack-down between anthropomorphized pieces of lingerie. If you see me crying, it’s because high school is hard.)

Tomorrow doesn’t have any fitness planned, which isn’t too bad, because I did just do three days in a row and I’m going to try to get to the Tuesday night kickboxing, too. Maybe I’ll try hulahooping during that online class I have. I don’t know how involved online classes are, do I have to sit and type or can I just watch the screen? Who am I asking here? Oh well! I am in some pain today, but the important thing is that my calves don’t hurt. Seriously, for the love of God, I hate it the most when my calves hurt. That why my stretching routine is pretty much all calf-oriented and nothing else, because I have a poor grasp of the concept of, well, “reality”, really. (It hurts when I sneeze or laugh, by the way, so the abs did their part. Nobody give me any pepper or witticisms!)

It’s Christmas and no-one is reading this anyway, so I wrote another dumbass story! Yay!

There once was a lady named Anne, because why the hell not? Late one night, Anne tried to open her bedroom door, but the door wouldn’t open. She looked through the keyhole, and she could see a bright sunny day through the windows, and a strange woman sitting on a strange chair, drinking a glass of white wine.

Obviously, time travel was happening. So Anne shouted through the door at the lady, “Hey, what time is it?” and the lady was all, “I don’t know, noon?” They had to shout really loud, because they were shouting across goddamned time. So Anne said, “No, sorry, what year is it? Year is the relevant thing, here.” And the wine-drinking lady was in the year 2034.

Anne was absolutely terrified by this, but decided to try opening the door anyway, because plot is happening and Anne makes poor life decisions. So she got her emergency battle-ax and went screaming for the bedroom door. The power of poor decisions breaks down the time-door! Huzzah!

The wine-drinking lady was pretty chill while a strange voice was screaming at her through her door from the past, but the sudden appearance of Anne with the emergency battle-ax was startling. Unfortunately for Anne, Wine-Drinking Lady is a sorceress with an emergency combat wand. Fortunately for Anne, Wine-Drinking Lady is really drunk and has bad aim.

The battle royale finishes when Wine-Drinking Lady realizes that Anne is her long-lost mother. The two have a tearful reunion, and Wine-Drinking Lady joins AA now that she knows her mother never abandoned her, she just ran through a time-door. The moral is, if you have kids, think of them before you rush headlong into the first bizarre anomaly you find.

Attended a latke party last night (and wound up tragically missing the mustache party, like a big loser). Talked to many interesting people at latkepalooza, and had one conversation that I was all, “This is going in my blog!” and now I can’t remember what I was talking about, so this is acknowledging that I remember that there was something I was desperately intent on blogging about at 1am last night, but it has faded like the morning dew.

One important thing that I do remember is the conversation about What Is In The Basement, Zombies Or A Dragon? I originally thought zombies, because that’s how I roll, but the warm nature of the pulsing light sort of had me turned around to the dragon side. Actually going into the basement was apparently not an option. I say this, because none of us thought to do it.

My other adventure yesterday (I can have multiple adventures in one day, because I have a very broad definition of adventure) was getting a shiny new laptop. Early Christmas! My old laptop is a sucky piece of suck, which I am now giving to my brother because he doesn’t have a laptop, and sucky laptops are better than none at all. But mine is new! And shiny! Also, functional in some ways, but whatever. The colour is blue.

I’m not updating from my shiny new laptop, though. I’m updating from the reference desk. The very boring reference desk, where no one is talking to me, because everyone is studying for exams. Nobody wants to learn new things, basically, they’re just working on remembering the old stuff. And I have no homework, so I’m left with you, beloved blog, to keep me company. The fun we’ll have.

I’ve gone to, like, four parties this week, which is why I haven’t updated in a little while. Halifax Librarians Party! Notable for it’s hidden food caches! You turn a corner, and bam! Surprise sushi! Go up the stairs, and holy crap! Some crazy ginger tarts! This paragraph has a lot of exclamation points, but I stand by all of them.

I changed the layout of my blog. I liked the pretty cranberries, but they didn’t actually sum up anything about me, they were just what came with the blog. Can anybody make blogs? Can you make me one with blueberries? Blueberries sum me up. But only the lowbush kind!

Most important issue of the post: I finally went back to grappling. With schedules and homework, I haven’t grappled in a month. It totally sucked. For one drill, I was on my partner, and I was going back and forth from pinning her down to controlling her arm and kneeing her armpit, and I was just, like, God I’ve missed this. I’m going to try to go to an extra grappling class this week, for funsies.

So, I chessed for the first time at Erica’s party last night! (You guys, if we all use chess as a verb, it’ll totally catch on!) I won, but only because my teacher/opponent, the very nice and patient Nanci, gave me lots of tips and do-overs. I had, like six pieces left on the board, and I’d taken one of hers. I’m still in the very learning stages, where the pieces have the names: Diagonal Guy, Straight Guy, and Horse. I figured out pawn, queen, and king, but they can have silly names, too: Easy Metaphor, Doing-Whatever Badass, and Valuable Liability.

Last day of class tomorrow! Thank you, Jesus, for having your birthday just precisely when I am finished with this crap. Ah, but I kid. I’m read a new article about robots today, and it’s totally making it into my presentation tomorrow night. I am just excited about robots.

Oh yeah! Mary and I came up with the greatest sci-fi idea ever! Because, you see, robots are being programmed with ethics. And robots can also analyze lots of data, and they’re super-efficient, and they don’t need bonuses to pay for gold houses full of cocaine and whores. Anyway, so robots should run the banking industry. And that’s how robots take over the world. We give it to them, because they’re better than Bernie Madoff! So, a sci-fi show about banking robots. Ethical banking robots. This is the next Battlestar Galactica, right here.